Another Sunday, Another Department Of Health Stitch-Up

I suppose it wouldn't be Sunday without some form prohibitionist effluence being thrown in our general direction to ruin the relaxation, and it wouldn't be the prohibition industry if they weren't still sticking to their tobacco template.

The alcohol industry is in the "last chance saloon" and should face heavier regulation if it does not take action to discourage dangerous drinking, a report by MPs will warn.

Is that a threat? Of course it is. Exactly the same threat used by the tobacco control industry in 2007. "Do everything we demand, or we'll come at you with the might of taxpayer funds poor saps unknowingly gave to us for the purpose".

Despite foolishly playing the appeasement game, the drinks industry have patently failed to halt the production lines, sack their entire staff, close up shop and hand the keys to Barratt so they can build affordable homes on the land.

Nothing short of this was ever going to be acceptable to unproductive, tax-leeching career nags - you know, the type whose BMW 5 series has a sticker in the back window saying "my other car is a broom" - because, you see, they're the ones 'advising' MPs with a such a sorry grasp of reality that they believe someone whose bank balance depends on ever increasing regulation.

There are some corkers in the Telegraph article, and it starts from para 2 with the biggest lie sold to the public in recent years.

MPs will say that a "Responsibility Deal" agreed between the Coalition and the food and drink industry has not curbed the excesses of the industry, which has done little to reduce discounted drinking which means beer can be bought more cheaply than water.

See links above for why this is quite demonstrably untrue on a plethora of different levels, but still it gets trotted out.

If this is the kind of casual lying the state is happy to indulge in for consumer goods with which the public is very familiar, the mind boggles as to the huge whoppers they must be telling us daily on matters which are more complicated. On this evidence, there is - quite simply - nothing at all we should believe from anyone who has anything to do with Westminster. Not a word. If government tell you that it's Tuesday, check the calendar. And if that still tells you it's Tuesday, take the calendar back to the shop and ask for a refund as you've been sold a shoddy rip-off from Hong Kong.

Remember the alcohol cheaper than water lie, by the way, because it will be relevant later on.

The Commons health select committee is expected to call for a statutory price limit for alcohol, at between 40 pence and 50 pence a unit.

Because they're fucking idiots and they hate the poor. It's all too predictable, isn't it?

The inquiry is expected to call for major changes to tackle Britain's culture of binge drinking, and to persuade those who regularly drink more than recommended limits to cut down.

By 'cut down', they mean stop entirely and go teetotal. Because, as Snowdon points out today yet again, the limits are quite ludicrous.

"Binge drinking" is defined as having more than 6 units for a woman and more than 8 units for a man on one or more occasions in a week, ie. four or more average drinks in an evening would do the trick for both genders. That is not "binge drinking", that is "drinking".

Or, for a wider weekly view, here's my take on it from 2010.

General Household Survey data from 2006 show that 31 per cent. of men are drinking hazardously, consuming more than 21 units per week

So, drink more than 8 cans of Stella per week, for example, and you must be tackled. You're hazardous.

With such paltry 'limits', set by government's temperance pals remember, there will never be a time when you are behaving as the government wishes you to. This hectoring will end only when the four horsemen come galloping up to claim your soul for eternity. Even then, the BMA's Vivienne Nathanson will probably still be wagging her finger as they sweep her up and throw her into the abyss.

During hearings, MPs were sceptical about examples given by the drinks industry of progress made since the deal, such as plans by one company to reduce the strength of a premium lager by 0.2 per cent.

MPs said a person would need to drink 25 pints before the change made any impact to the number of units that they drank.

This is by far the most baffling stanza in the whole piece. 25 pints? Why 25 pints? However much I play around with this, there is no reference point, they may as well say reducing by 0.2% won't do anything to help paint Emperor penguins blue by 2015.

And if we are fiddling around with small amounts of alcohol and playing the dick-waggling game, why does this belong in the same article as one which pumps out the old lie of getting drunk on lager which is cheaper than water?

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted something about the own-brand lager—it is piss-weak (2% ABV). Frankly, you might as well drink the water. 4 cans of this stuff equates to about a can and a half of Stella. Hardly enough to get "drunk for £1"

These hideous freaks work exclusively on canards. While we have Sarah Wollaston lying about the cost to moderate drinkers of minimum pricing - which is only apparently £12 per year but will save over 2,000 deaths - small margins the other way are dismissed as useless.

No. The only response to a non-existent problem is whatever government have paid their stooges for, coupled with a steady withdrawal of alcohol companies from the UK market.

There is, after all, no safe level of alcohol consumption and, as such, someday the government will have to declare that the drinks industry is not welcome.

Perhaps some dangerously hypnotised fuckwit might term it something like this.

"We don't want to work in partnership with the drinks companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country,"

Still, we're not at that point just yet. Because, you see, there is no precedent for ridiculous hysteria in one area to seep into another. We know this thanks to those fine, upstanding, honest people in the tobacco control industry.

The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited."

Deborah Arnott said that in February, and she's "an 'expert', Dave". So this part of today's article is quite obviously a fabrication.

In evidence submitted to the inquiry, 30 leading medical bodies and charities also called for a total ban on advertising for alcohol on television.

The groups said Britain's "alcohol problem" has become so entrenched that drastic action – which would also include an end to sponsorship of sporting events – is required to protect children and teenagers.

Worry not, though. Just let them have that, and minimum pricing, and early morning restriction orders, and late night levies, and pubs shutting at 10pm, and graphic warnings on alcohol, and plain packaging, and they might, just might shut up and allow us a relaxing beer of a weekend.

Perhaps.